My husband and I are relatively newly married (coming up on 3 years) but we have been dating almost 8 years so there’s a lot of history but I’m still trying to figure out where I fit in with some of his family matters.

His parents are not financially smart. At all. His dad is 68 and has worked as a contractor in construction his whole adult life. He is already taking Social Security and he is still working. He does make pretty good money when he does get jobs, but with his age we know that his body won’t allow him to do physical labor much longer so the clock is ticking. His mom is 55 and has very little work experience as she chose to stay home with her kids until they went to college, 22 years total. She went back to work for a few years, quit, then spent about 3 years unemployed and just recently went back to work a few months ago. She works an okay job making okay money.

They have never owned a house. They have always rented. They are currently renting a house from her sister and are basically just paying the note for it. She isn’t making any profit off of them.

For years I have watched his mom live a lifestyle they could not afford. She has blown through tax returns, spending the money on frivolous things like having custom curtains made ($3,000🤯). She has a housekeeper come every other week ($200) gets her nails done every 10 days ($45 a pop), hair done by one of the most expensive people in town every 4 weeks ($200), drives a very nice car and pays $600/mo for it (and is WAY upside down on it) while his dad drives a POS that breaks down every other day. She insists on seeing a doctor that doesn’t accept insurance so each appointment is $150 and she goes twice a month (plus the cost of prescriptions - we all think she’s a hypochondriac because she literally sees some sort of doctor for something at least once a week). The list goes on and on, but you get the idea.

We were talking to them a few days ago about their cable bill. They told us it was $250. My husband and I both about fell over. We asked what was causing it to be so high and his dad told us that there were a couple of late fees on it. So my husband said he would take a look at it and help them find a more affordable way to watch tv. Later that night, him and I were talking about their bill and he told me that a couple of months ago he was at their house helping them do something with their cable account and while he was logged in, he saw that they had 3 months worth of late fees on their account. He told me he paid the late fees for them to get them current on their bill. I had no idea he did that until this conversation and the only reason he told me about it at all was because of what they had said earlier that night.

I was pretty upset that 1) he didn’t tell me he was paying his parents’ bills and 2) they LET him pay it and then got behind AGAIN!!!!

My husband feels the financial burden of having to support his parents in the future almost every day. While I am on board with helping them, I do not feel like it is fair to our own family whenever they aren’t even helping themselves. My husband and I have both worked since we were in high school, we worked our way through college, and now have solid corporate careers. We are pretty successful for our age and live a comfortable life. But we don’t even have a house keeper. I don’t get my nails done. I get my hair done every 10 weeks. We eat out once a week. We live below our means because saving for our future is more important that having polished nails and custom curtains. And we also like having the financial freedom to be able to travel any time we like. My parents are the TOTAL opposite so I can’t relate to any of this with them. This whole thing is sooooooooo foreign to me.

I think that the best way he can help them is to teach them how to make smart financial decisions but he refuses to do it because he is terrified of what his mother’s response will be. I have no idea what to do. I think the whole thing is so selfish on their part and it really pisses me off that my husband is seemingly more willing to make sacrifices with our own family before he will sit down and have a hard talk with his parents. It makes me resent them and I’m afraid that it’s eventually going to make me resent my husband.